Posted on 08/16/2006 10:32:06 AM PDT by Major Matt Mason
New figures from the Commerce Department's U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show average compensation for federal employees to be double that of private sector workers for the first time.
Federal workers earned an average of $106,579 in 2005, including benefits, or about twice the average private sector compensation of $53,289 with benefits included. This marked the first time federal compensation reached this point; for 2004 the bureau's statistics put it at slightly less than double the private sector's.
Without benefits, the difference for 2005 is less. Federal employees earned an average salary of $71,114 while their private sector counterparts earned $43,917.
Libertarian scholar Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute think tank wrote about the increase on his blog.
"I thought that new data for 2005 would show the federal advantage narrowing due to strong private sector growth," Edwards said. "Instead, the federal advantage increased once again. Average federal wages rose 5.8 percent in 2005 compared to an increase of 3.3 percent in the private sector."
But the growing divide cannot be attributed to out-of-control federal pay, said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. She argued that increased government outsourcing means more blue-collar jobs were in the private sector.
Kelley called for a direct comparison between the same jobs in the private and public sectors.
"The federal workforce is a white-collar workforce and more and more federal jobs are in professional categories, like lawyers [and] accountants," she said. "A much larger percentage of federal workers have college degrees than private sector workers. So the comparison of the white-collar federal workforce to the entire private sector workforce, which includes many blue-collar jobs, isn't apples to apples."
She also said benefits have not increased for federal employees, so any gap would likely be due to a decrease in private sector benefits, such as eliminating health care or pensions.
"This is a huge problem that would be much more worthy of review," Kelley said.
Edwards is an advocate for government downsizing and a transfer of highly skilled jobs to the private sector. In May, he released a paper arguing the pay gap between the public and private sectors runs counter to the current thinking.
In 1990, Congress passed the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which was designed to bring federal employees closer to their private sector counterparts in pay, but was never fully implemented. That program uses the Labor Department's Bureau of Labor Statistics to find salary comparisons. BLS matches salaries for specific jobs.
Yet we constantly hear the bureucratic mob kvetching about how badly they're overworked. If half of these people are paid at all, they're getting more than they're worth.
Suggest you tell that to your lawyer.
"they're getting more than they're worth."
Especially the lawyers!
"If half of these people are paid at all, they're getting more than they're worth."
And you base this on what?
But please, please, please tell him that. No need to talk salaries around here.
Ahh the Government Tit - the gift that keeps on giving.
She gets way more than she should too. But at least that's only coming out of MY pocket, and I have a choice about the matter. Bureaucrats are not accountable to anyone and they're paid by robbing taxpayers at gunpoint.
Trick is the federal government hires lawyers for less than the private sector, and for less than you pay them.
The government outsources almost everything below a GS 11 whenever possible nowadays. Go into a federal building and look for people below the age of 40 who work there. Won't be many! Therefore, this study is comparing an organization that's mostly upper management vs. organizations that have the total spectrum.
Not a very accurate comparison.
You are right on that one.
The last place I interviewed with told me, "They would pay me what I was worth."
I replied, "Nobody would work for that!!"
My brother in law feels that if he ever has to go out into the private sector, the best he would do is about 1/3 of what he earns now.
The difference is real.
The servants are now the masters
output
This study, among other things. That and the observation I make every time I have to deal with people whose mantra is "It's not my job. You'll have to talk to ___________" And of course, it's not _____________'s job either, or so he tells me when he gets back from his six-week semi-annual vacation to Belize on the taxpayer dime. Or when I walk into the driver's license office and see six windows, five of which are closed and the only open one of which is staffed by a 300-pound black woman with nine-inch-nails and an attitude like Selma Bouvier. Or when I see a dozen city "workers" patching a street by holding down the remaining concretes with their butts while two "supervisors" sit in the truck with the engine running and swap nookie stories.
Then there are the inert legions of desk pilots who infest government palaces everywhere, producing voluminous reports that are carefully annotated, collated, and stored in such a way that they hold doors open.
How did Jefferson describe them? "... swarms ... [who] harrass our people and eat out their substance."
We need a photo of a nursing sow.
What the F#$%????? AVERAGE is double the private sector?
Well, harrumph, this certainly isn't the sort of thing we want going public... we haven't set ourselves up as a priveleged class with higher pay, better benefits, more time off and our own retirement program where we are exempt from Social Security just to have all these damn taxpayers find out about it and muck it up!
I have never heard so many young people tell me that they want to work in some form of government employment. I think its because alot of them see the stress on their parents in the private sector - to hold onto wages and benefits - and they say "the hell with that".
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